PAC-12 Basketball: Preseason power rankings for 2020-21 season

I can say with confidence there is not a trickier team in the PAC-12 to predict at this point than Sean Miller’s Wildcats.

Gone are last year’s three stud freshmen – Nico Mannion, Zeke Nnaji, and Josh Green – as well as Brandon Williams, Max Hazzard, Chase Jeter, Dylan Smith, and Stone Gettings.

In their place are three transfers who are expected to start – Terrell Brown (SeattleU) James Akinjo (Georgetown) and Jordan Brown (Nevada). The bench is almost entirely freshmen – with a recruiting class that features five players inside 247Sports’ top 122 ranked players.

So, it’s really an incredible range of outcomes for this team. If Brown, Brown, and Akinjo all adjust well to Miller’s offensive gameplan, and the youngsters – namely Dalen Terry and Kerr Kria – are immediately impactful, this team could easily win the PAC-12 and cement themselves among the top 15, or even top 10, teams in the country.

If the freshman isn’t quite ready to contribute, or if Brown and Akinjo can’t quite make the leap to instant contributors on high-level teams, this could be the beginning of the end for this dominant run by the Wildcats.

I’m inclined to be more on the former than the ladder, although this team still has enough flaws to get exploited by PAC-12 opponents. I expect a top 5 performance in conference play – but it will take some magic for this team to play their way past the second weekend of the NCAA tournament.